Installer window blocks GParted window

[zinga666]

What Happened?

When clicking on "Modify Partitions..." in the installer window then a GParted window is opened but the installer window stays always on top so that it blocks the GParted window which makes it impossible to use.

Also, when having a disk with existing partitions it is not possible to select partitions - seems to be a similar issue where other UI elements get blocked by the installer window.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Execute installation from elementaryos-8.1-stable-amd64.20251211.iso (e.g. in VM).
2. Do a "Custom Install (Advanced)".
3. Click on "Modify Partitions..."

Expected Behavior

Installer window should not block other windows.

OS Version

8.x (Circe)

OS Architecture

amd64 (on most hardwares)

Session Type

Secure Session (Wayland, This is the default)

Software Version

Latest release (I have run all updates)

Log Output

Hardware Info

No response

[pedropaulosuzuki]

Same here. I was able to move the GParted window to the side and do the repartitioning, but then the popups from the installer also went behind the window and I was unable to do anything.

VID-20251227-WA0016.mp4

[ryonakano]

This is a regression of #881. Calling PantheonWayland.ExtendedBehavior.make_centered () seems to be not only make the window centered but also keep it on top of any windows for some reason even if you don't call PantheonWayland.ExtendedBehavior.set_keep_above ().

[Infinity-167]

Having the same issue, the window can be resized but it moves into the center of the screen blocking any window or pop-ups preventing me from creating any partitions for root, home and swap.

[ls-1N]

Same here. I was able to move the GParted window to the side and do the repartitioning, but then the popups from the installer also went behind the window and I was unable to do anything.
VID-20251227-WA0016.mp4

Same issue but found another workaround. To access the installer window partition popups:

1. Resize the window to be as small as possible vertically.
2. Scroll so that only a small top part (3-10 px) of the colorful bar of partitions is visible (at the bottom edge of the window).
3. Click on a partition to configure; Popup appears beneath the always-on-top installer window.

I forgot to test if the Elementary OS shortcut Alt+Space works there.

[ryonakano]

@leolost2605 @lenemter Sorry for pinging you, but could you take a look at this issue? It has been reported from many users.

I found calling PantheonWayland.ExtendedBehavior.make_centered () in any app causes this issue as commented in #917 (comment), but I'm not familiar with window management and not sure anything beyond that……

[leolost2605]

I can only speak for gala here because I've never touched the greeter compositor which I think is used in the installer session (?) but I had a quick look and it seems like greeter is just a copy paste from gala albeit from a bit of an outdated version.
My reasoning in gala was that having a window that can't be moved in the middle of the screen very strongly suggests that you should finish anything you have to do in this window (or transients) and then close it. If you're meant to interact with completely unrelated windows while it's open it shouldn't be centered.
Therefore to avoid some complexity that will/should never be used I decided to automatically treat centered windows as shell windows. I 100% agree that the API isn't very obvious here because it grew organically over time and once we can do an api break make_centered, set_keep_above and make_modal should probably be replaced with just make_modal which then also makes it centered. Anyways that's probably too much detail but I wanted to provide some background.
Long story short I think gparted should probably be a transient of the installer window if that's possible and if not we can probably just drop all the shell group stuff from the greeter compositor as I don't think it's needed there anywhere? But on the other hand someone said that the popups from the installer are also behind the window which shouldn't happen but that might be an X11 thing?
I'll see if I can get some drafts for that but I've never worked on greeter and I'm not even running the elementary greeter because I've got a weird install from when 8.0 alpha images didn't quite boot 😅 So this might take a while.
But like I said I also might be missing some context so @lenemter and @danirabbit probably know more here.
Ig we could/should probably revert #884 for now since this seems very critical and I can't promise a quick fix.

[danirabbit]

Yeah I agree we should revert for now as that would be the fastest fix.

If gparted can have installer be its parent that's also a good idea. Especially if we can get window dimming

I didn't realize that make centered also always makes on top though, that's definitely not expected in my opinion. We have windows also like onboarding that want to be centered but shouldn't be always on top. We also have an explicit always on top function so I think make centered shouldn't do this and only do what it claims to do